Daily Security Brief: July 26, 2011

FARYAB: Two guerrillas were killed during a fight with police in the Almar district, district chief Mohammad Omar said.

The clash erupted after a group of insurgents stormed a police check-post in the Qurda Qala area, the district chief, he said.

— Ramin

HELMAND: 14 fighters and two policemen were killed, and eight militants wounded, in an attack on Helmand police checkpoints in the Musazai area of Musa Qala district, Daud Ahmadi, a spokesman for the provincial governor, told Pajhwok Afghan News. Elsewhere, Ahmadi said that two children, ages 9 and 13, were killed in a bomb blast in the Alizai area of the Nawsad district on Monday.

Taliban spokesman Qari Yousuf Ahmadi confirmed the loss of three fighters and injuries to two others but said that six policemen, including a commander, were also killed in the Musa Qala firefight.   

Ahmadi blamed the Alizai explosion on the Taliban, who have yet to comment on the incident.

Elsewhere in the province, police recovered 40 pistols and 24 walkie-talkies from a car during an operation in the Nahr-i-Siraj area of Greshk district, said Col. Mohammad Ismail, deputy head of the joint Afghan-ISAF military centre.

— Zainullah Stanikzai

LAGHMAN: Five suspected militants were killed by Afghan and coalition forces during a joint operation targeting a Taliban leader in the Qarghayee district of eastern Laghman province, the International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) said Tuesday. However, residents alleged the dead were civilians.

The combined force raided a compound in the district where several insurgents engaged the force throughout the night, the alliance said in a statement. The statement said one local woman suffered “minor wounds” and was treated on site.

Residents dispute this account, saying three civilians were killed and four others injured during the overnight raid. The men mistook the soldiers for thieves, who often wear Afghan army uniforms, said Attiqullah Abdul Rahimzai, a resident of the area and member of the Laghman Provincial Council. He said that the joint force raided the house and killed three people. Another three members of the family were wounded, he added.

The victims included two women, according to another resident, Mohammad Alam. He said the men were from the Khogyani district of neighbouring Nangarhar province, ad had been working as farmers in Qarghayee for the past 10 years.

— Obaidullah Baidar

LOGAR: Two militants were killed and a third wounded during a clash with Afghan and foreign forces in the Barak-i-Barak district of central Logar province, district chief Rahim Amin said Tuesday. Separately, Amin said, Taliban fighters torched a NATO fuel supply tanker in the Honi Saydan area of the district and then fled the scene.

The four-hour firefight was touched off by a rebel attack on a joint patrol of Afghan-ISAF forces in the Babur area late on Monday, he said. Din Mohammad Dervish, the governor’s spokesman, said security personnel had suffered no casualties in the gunbattle.

— Maqsud Azizi

MAIDAN WARDAK: Four private security guards were killed, and a fifth injured in a roadside bombing in the central province of Maidan Wardak, the governor’s spokesman, Shahidullah Shadid, said Tuesday. Elsewhere in the province, an Afghan National Army (ANA) vehicle was blown up in the Jalrez district, and a civilian was killed in an engagement between insurgents and the ANA following the blast, Shadid said.

The roadside bombing took place Tuesday morning on the Kabul-Kandahar highway.

Qayyum, a resident of the Jalrez district, disputed Shadid’s account of civilian casualties in the engagement between the ANA and insurgents in Jalrez. He said the battle lasted an hour and claimed the lives of two civilians and injured another.

— Mohammad Farid Karimi

NIMROZ: Two militants were killed and four others injured in a clash in the southwestern province of Nimroz, official sources say. Taliban spokesman Qari Yousaf Ahmadi disputes the casualty figures.

A police logistics convoy came under attack in the Pushta Hasan area of Khashrod district late on Monday night, town administrative head Mohammad Hashim Nawrozi told Pajhwok Afghan News. He said that two attackers were killed and five others injured in the ensuing clash. Provincial police chief Brig. Gen. Abdul Jabbar Purdali confirmed the incident, saying police suffered no causalities.

A Taliban spokesman, Qari Yousaf Ahmadi, said the fighters attacked a joint convoy of police and foreign forces in the area, killing six Afghan soldiers. He said a military tank and other vehicles were destroyed. He said one insurgent was killed and nine others injured.

— Ramin

URUZGAN: Four militants were killed in the Khas Uruzgan district of Uruzgan province, said Ahmad Mudassir, the governor’s spokesman.

He said Taliban fighters attacked local police, wounding three of them and destroying their vehicle. He said four attackers were killed in the ensuing fight. 

But Taliban spokesman Qari Yousuf Ahmadi claimed that 22 local policemen had surrendered to the fighters. He said the rebels had captured the district, but officials rejected the claim as groundless.

— Ahmad Omaid Khpalwak

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